Credit Card Hippie Fest

This semester at school I took Small Group Communications. The first day in the class we talked about how the whole class is going to revolve around putting together some type of event. I was so excited! That's what I want to do! That's what I'm good at! Planning and organizing (just not my own house, but that's a whole blog onto itself). So we broke up into groups and started brainstorming. As I listened to some of my classmates idea, a cold chill started to creep up my spine. I was hearing lots of words like compost, greenhouse, vegan meals.....at this time I started to take in the appearance of those same people (I know, I know never judge a book by it's cover) they where in expensive hiking boots skinny jeans stuffed in the tops, wind breakers that cost more then my credit card payments, "handmade" scarves from stores in the mall, carelessly tossed hair complemented by their subtal make-up......the worst kind of people, Credit Card Hippies!!! People raised in homes with "great rooms" who go to school as art majors because they are "free spirits". My hopes of having any fun with this project where dashed with one glance at my teacher, fuzzy crazy hair pushed back with a headband, mix match shirt and skirt, and of course.... Colorful clogs to complete the outfit of a new age "thinker". I sat there in my Navy sweatshirt with dread, knowing that this project was about to become a cluster F, full of good intentions and no work. I was 100% correct. The only saving grace of this entire semester was my team. When breaking up into groups to work on our project, Sustainability Day, I chose the permissions group. While I was interested in the advertising group I had a sneaking suspition that I would have to fight the many art majors for a spot. So I went with paperwork. And boy did I choose correctly. While the 5 of us seemed to be all on board with not really being on board with this idea, we worked. And boy did we work. Our group went from having one goal, get permission to have the event, to doing pretty much the whole event! Even started a sustainability club on campus. While the other groups had a hard time scheduling times to meet or picking out a color for their poster, permissions secured 9 outside vendors to set up tables, built a hydroponic farming unit that could be used in a small home/dorm, recycled old Tshirts into shopping bags (to help with the banish the bag program in town), tried our hands at using plarn (yarn made out of plastic bags) to upcycle old bags, and brought in over 15 items from business around town to auction off. In between all that we managed to write 3 papers as a group. Today was the event. Our group manned 4 tables, all with work we did. The others in class where nice enough to at least color up some posters to sit in front of. Sustainability Day was an actual success thanks to the hard work of the permissions group, the only group whose all 5 members voted no to the idea in the first place. So in fact, I believe that sometimes you truly can judge a book by it's cover.